Comment by dfxm12
5 years ago
I can understand how people can rationalize some of his failures, but, the second time around, how can someone vote for a guy who has failed on delivering on a very simple and basic campaign promise, one that he can do that unilaterally?
“The country wasn’t based on executive orders,” Trump said at a South Carolina campaign stop in February 2016. “Right now, Obama goes around signing executive orders. He can’t even get along with the Democrats, and he goes around signing all these executive orders. It’s a basic disaster. You can’t do it.”
I know I'm probably pissing in the wind here, but I was looking forward to a president ceding some of his power back to congress, so this one really sticks in my craw. Oh well.
Because, while this is not true of individual republicans, republican party media strategy has been based on positional ethics for a long time. Free speech is good when it is our free speech. Executive orders are bad when they are your executive orders.
Both parties do this. For instance, Republicans are generally the party of "states' rights", but Democrats are jumping up and down about how the federal government shouldn't overrule the rights of liberal states now. Things like the fighting the FCC trying to prohibit states from making their own net neutrality rules, or legalizing marijuana, which is still technically illegal nationwide according to the federal government.
Generally, if you run the federal government, you don't want states objecting to your agenda. And if the opposition is running the federal government, you insist on your right to do things at the state level.
Watching Democrats and Republicans make the exact same arguments depending on whose in power is absolutely hilarious, and it leads to great soundbites, like those of Trump and McConnell talking about what the President should and shouldn't do... depending who the President is.
Conservative support of "states' rights" has always been a dog whistle for restricting civil liberties.
Civil Rights Act? States' rights issue. Same–sex marriage? Let the states decide. Abortion? States should be free to ban.
Edit: swapped "Republican" with "Conservative", since the parties' ideologies have shifted over time.
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I don’t believe the Democratic Party has ever advocated that states should have no rights, so I don’t see how your argument makes any sense. Of course in a specific instance they could advocate for states rights.
It is also perfectly fair on the Republican side.
That is a bit disingenuous. It is true to some degree that both parties do it to some degree, for example LGBT rights and abortion rights. But bigger picture "conservatives" have a long history of saying state rights when they mean white rights. There are still a significant portion of the population that pretends to believe that the civil war was over state rights.
> but I was looking forward to a president ceding some of his power back to congress
And you were expecting that from someone who draws a significant amount of fame from "You're fired!", and "I'm the boss", "I have total authority"??
It was less "expecting", and more like "looking for a silver lining".
If Trump presidency ends badly, I could see the President becoming more like the Doge in Venice, every time the Doge failed they tended to lose power.
Probably for Mr Trumps relatives the best way out is hope he dies or have him sectioned - in return for a presidential pardon.